Working with Children, Young People and Families

 

Close of training of the Multi-agency course Working with Families commissioned by Bournemouth Social Services

PUBLIC COURSE IN 2012: Our next public course is on 25th September 2012 in London- please see our Training & Events page

"Thank you for presenting a day that was worth the wait and sharing your knowledge and enthusiasms with us all. I feel that it was one of the best presented days that I have attended in a long while and that the information you shared with us was practical and could be implemented with families to address their felt needs in a proactive manner thus enabling them to pursue their goals in partnership with services. Many Thanks"
George Voulgaris, Nurse Specialist, CAMHS/YOTs Doncaster

1 - 3 day Solution Focused Brief Intervention and Brief Therapy Training courses for staff across the Children, Young People & Family services including Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS): An additional training programme is our - Effective Early Intervention a 7 day, whole-team training and development framework.

Using Solution Focused Signs of Safety is gaining popular ity in the UK and is currently used by many local authorities as a resource for helping staff to look at what is causing concern (signs of danger) and what is working (signs of safety)  within Child Protection work.

Our early practice in preventative and crisis intervention work with local authorities Prevention & Intervention Programme alerted us to the changes that could be brought about in a family session by "tinkering" with the statutory language to reduce conflict and resistance and therefore  increase the likelihood of the family engaging.

When parents don't engage - access to hearing how it is for the child can be limited. Therefore reducing anxiety and conflict, especially where the family were referred as part of a statutory order, is seen an important element for all work with families in order to ensure the safety of the child.

No element of our work supercedes the protection of the child - all of our training courses emphasise that the statutory duty of the worker to utilize their own Child Protection practices and guidance, including investigative skills, override any model or theory when working with children, however utilizing the approach can often bring information to the surface about family coping skills or otherwise which should help the worker in their overall work to ensure the safety of all the family group.

Using Brief, strengths-based approaches, when working with families under Section 20, offers an opportunity to recognise that things have gone wrong, talk about times when they coped and gradually move towards preferred futures, in real and practical steps.  The Consultancy have trained diverse groups within Children & Families Departments including Family Intervention Practitioners, Health Visitors and Children Centre Staff and Family Support Workers. All of our training course evaluations are available for view both on our Evaluations Map and by application.

During sessions with families under Section 20, talking about preferred futures rather than only focusing on the stopping of destructive past or present behaviour can be a watershed, a point of change. The tasks and monitor charts we use are offered to begin the start of new behaviour rather than the stopping of old behaviour.

The training provides the worker with a clear structure for sessions and works to bring the family on a different journey, one which highlights existing competencies, reinforces strengths and resources within their relationship with their young person and encourages a move forward rather than an exploration of the "stuckness" that necessitated the referral.

The approach is in keeping with good practice guidelines including the Effective Practice guidelines, Child in Need Assessments and offers evidence-based practice tools in that:

• It is child-focused and allows "listening" to the needs of the child
  
• The Solution Focused approach works with the whole family and involves examining what the issues are with each family member
  
• The child's agenda is heard from the child's perspective with the use of drawings: the Change Balloon, Relationship Map, Scaling Walk and other visuals from The Examine, Repair & Move On Approach Murphy '93) 
  
• The approach looks at the child in the context of the family and their wider environment
  
• Throughout the sessions, the worker works in partnership with the parents and child
  
• The approach works with the strengths of the family and builds on them
  
• The cultural needs of the family are met throughout.

As well as equipping staff with the collaborative language of the Solution Focused model and the visuals and tools of the Examine, Repair & Move On Approach - the training also covers the importance of reducing conflict between worker and client - this is especially relevant when working with families. For further details on this element of the training please see Optima Communications Skills Training page.

We provide 1 - 3 day inhouse training courses across the UK. To book inhouse training please contact us at info@brief-therapy-uk.com or call on Tel 0208 947 8093 or on the office mobile 07779 242 289.  Please also see our Public Course page for details of our annual public course